Anne Skorkjær Binderkrantz

TL;DR: The literature often contrasts interest groups possessing insider status and outsider groups forced to seek influence through more indirect means as discussed by the authors, drawing on data from a survey of all national DAs, the authors of this paper draw on data collected from all national Dani...

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors combine two perspectives on interest group representation to explain patterns of interest group access to different political arenas and show a pattern of privileged pluralism in Danish political arenas.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors compared the political activities of different types of interest groups and found that public interest groups are more likely to use publicly visible strategies in which affecting the media agenda plays a central role.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigated the development in the diversity of interest group media attention over time and showed that diversity has risen continually over time, leading to a media agenda less dominated by labour and business and more by public interest groups and sectional groups.

Abstract: Interest groups pursue a wide range of policy goals. In their attempts to realize these goals, groups may lobby bureaucrats and politicians, approach the media and engage in protest activities. This article investigates the relation between the characteristics of policy goals and the strategies of influence utilized by interest groups. Policy goals are captured by four dimensions emphasizing: (i) the divisibility of goals, (ii) the degree of change sought, (iii) the type of interests pursued, and (iv) how technical goals are. The relevance of these dimensions and the effect of goals on influence strategies are tested in a survey of national Danish interest groups. The findings support the importance of group goals as determining strategy. Groups pursuing general interests mainly lobby parliament and the media, whereas groups with technically complicated goals lobby bureaucrats more intensively. The more divisible a goal a group is pursuing, the more actively it engages in all types of influence strategies.